REPORT ON REPORTS – Dr. Brian Howes, technical director of the Massachusetts Estuaries Project, tells members of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative about progress on reports for their towns’ embayments. Cape towns are divided on a proposal by the Orleans Board of Selectmen to ask the National Academy of Sciences to do a peer review of MEP’s methodology. This week, the state Department of Environmental Protection declared that methodology “solid and robust enough to warrant its use as a tool for developing both federally mandated Total Maximum Daily Loads and community Comprehensive Wastewater Management Plans.” Howes said the long-awaited TMDLs for Barnstable and Yarmouth’s Lewis Bay should be released this month.

Steps taken to prepare defense for lawsuit

One by one, the members of the Cape Cod Water Protection Collaborative reported on the progress their towns are making toward managing water and wastewater. Barnstable was on the eve of a major town council vote on long-term financing options. Chatham was in the midst of digging new sewers. Other representatives argued good-naturedly about which of their communities was furthest behind.

For all those differences, all of the men and women sitting in the conference room at Barnstable Superior Court House July 14 were probably wondering the same thing: is it enough?

Acting on the recommendation of their executive director, Andrew Gottlieb, members agreed unanimously to recommend that the county prepare a legal strategy to address an impending lawsuit by the Conservation Law Foundation. Whatever progress toward addressing wastewater treatments they can show, Gottlieb advised, their case will be that much stronger.

Gottlieb said it’s likely CLF will start litigation by the end of the year both to push along the effort to reduce nitrogen levels in Cape waters and to make a point that will have national impact: that non-point sources of pollution – read septic systems – must be addressed along with more familiar point sources such as outfalls.

Litigation could involve the federal Environmental Protection Agency, the state Department of Environmental Protection, Barnstable County, individual Cape towns, or any or all of the above. By readying its response now, Gottlieb said, the Cape, even if it loses a suit, can have a say in the solutions that will be imposed.